Behind closed doors: a different Christmas story

It's different now.

Growing up with an alcoholic father, Christmas was the worst and scariest time of the year for me. It was when my father drank excessively every evening in December and he had an excuse, not that he needed one. It was when my mother felt exhausted: from cooking for my father's friends who came over after drinks at work, from keeping them company until the early hours, from enduring his bad moods when the alcohol ran out, the glasses went empty, and the friends’ laughter dried up.

My mother was exhausted from late-night arguments, from physical abuse, from trying to protect her children. She felt hopeless, unable to make him see how his behaviour left us scared, paralysed by fear, unsure whether we would survive until the next day.

As a child, I knew all the steps I needed to take if the situation escalated: run to the door and grab the keys so he couldn’t lock us in, open the door or a window and shout, or, if I was lucky, call the police and give them our address. I knew all the exits, yet I could see no way out—no escape from my father’s violence. Not at Christmas. Not ever.

But this story isn’t about my mother. It’s not about my late father, either. This is about me, the Christmas I want to delete and the one I want to reimagine. Like an advent calendar, each day I open the drawers and replace sadness with joy, fear with laughter, rage with love. I do everything I can to erase the old memories and create our own. New beginnings - delicate yet beautiful, like the winter frost patterns lacing our window.

It's different now.

My childhood experience shaped me into someone who can’t bear the sound of cheesy Christmas songs, who flinches at the clinking of wine glasses, who jumps every time someone unlocks the front door late in the evening. Some of you will say, “but this experience also made you the strong and resilient woman you are, the loving mother, the grateful daughter.” But, as

Maggie Smith

also poses the question in her memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful, why do people think children need these traumatic experiences to become resilient? How is it ok to assume children need to go through something terrible to come out stronger? I’ve also been told many times that I have this gift of turning something horrible into something beautiful: a novel to share with the world. Let me tell you: I didn’t need to live in fear for 15 years to become a good writer. I needed a safe place to call home. A magical Christmas like the one you probably imagine when you think of Christmas time as a child.

It's different now.

Today I know there is a way out—if people are willing to listen and help. There is hope—but only if others don’t judge and, instead, offer refuge. I know things can get better because they are better for me now.

Because we left.

We got help.

We survived.

We moved on, carrying with us those 15 years of living in fear.

It's different now.

I can say this from the perspective of the time distance, as someone slowly recovering, still wearing the scars from that dark period—like a bad, mouldy smell that never fully fades.

It's different now. It is.

Because I’m a mother, caring for her beautiful children, keeping them safe, keeping them far from fear, making festive dishes like the ones my mother cooked: cabbage leaves stuffed with rice, beans stew and Russian salad, baking cookies, and baklava—following Bulgarian rituals and British traditions which merge and amalgamate in our a culture we call our own. Dancing to tunes that are ours only. Filling in the Christmas stockings with sweetness and love. Crafting handmade advent calendars.

Making Christmas magical for my girls.

But I know there are still many children for whom Christmas is the scariest time of the year—when school is closed for the holidays, and they are stuck at home. And home is not a safe place.

I wrote about this (and many other things such as motherhood, and identity, and belonging) in my novel Arrival. It’s fiction, not a memoir. The events and people aren’t real, yet they do exist. I didn’t write it from a place of fear, or anger, or remorse, but from a place of acceptance—and maybe even hope. Perhaps one day there will be forgiveness, too, but not yet, not today.

Here’s a short excerpt for you:

it’s new year’s eve, a few minutes past midnight, and I am crouched down, meek and still in the wardrobe in our bedroom amid hanging dresses and ironed shirts; I’m biting my lips to muffle my sobs, hands pressing my ears tightly to mute the shouting coming from the other room

my five-year-old body is quivering and I can feel the heartbeats in my head, but all other body parts are numb as though I don’t exist; I must not move; I shut my eyes, I make myself small, invisible, so no one can find me; then the shouting stops

one, two, three, four… I count the seconds of quietness spread over time like a chewing gum; is she still alive, I think; five, six, seven… my mind is racing; eight, nine… when I count ten, I have to leave my secret place and aim for the phone in the other room; I must call the police and tell them where we live

I know well what to do; I have rehearsed it thousands of times before; I learned our address by heart before learning how to read; I do everything automatically, as if in my sleep, without thinking at all; everything is encoded in me

I also know time is precious; there is a window of a few seconds for me to act before my dad catches me; if I can get through in time, the policemen come, they ring the bell, my father keeps us quiet in the other room, and eventually they leave

it doesn’t always work; most often they think I’m playing a prank on them and hang up on me; sometimes I manage to open the door, the policemen come in, they ask questions and leave, as there is no crime yet, it’s all family matters

I pause after nine and wait; nine feels forever; nine is infinity

then a bang follows and my mum’s screams enter the suffocating space through the cracks of the wardrobe doors; her cry is both disturbing and comforting, a sign that my mother is alive

I stay put until the shouting stops, until my mother goes to the bathroom to wash her face under the ice-cold running water, until she enters the bedroom barefoot and whispers my name, as though calling a cat when it’s safe for it to come out of its hiding place; I deliberate for a moment, then take a deep breath before pushing open the creaking wardrobe door; or maybe it’s the other way around

she inches towards me, kneels down to my height and her arms envelop my shaking body gently; her face looks jittery, her hair is messy, her breathing is heavy but she is forcing a smile to comfort me, to make me feel safe; I know this because she does it every time; I also know we aren’t safe, not yet

– c’mon, let’s go, baby, quickly

she bundles up a few clothes and stuffs them into a white bin bag, then grabs my hand and guides me into the living room; my father is asleep in the armchair, snoring, intoxicated by the alcoholic halo he’s breathing back into his lungs; his face, although red and sweaty, looks calm now; we cross the room tiptoeing, aware that the slightest noise could wake him up and foil our escape; I glance at his gored fist, hanging over the chair’s armrest, and wonder if it’s smeared with his blood or mum’s

there we are, out of the flat, leaving the front door open and unlocked so as not to wake him up; it’s dark in the corridor and it smells of damp; my mum is holding me tightly by the hand as we hurtle down the stairs; we stop a few floors below and knock on the door; it’s quiet at first, then the door lock clicks and I see the neighbour’s confused expression, staring at us from under her bouffant hair, her eyes wide open, moving between mum’s pleading face, my shaking body and our half-full bin bag

– elena, who is it

her husband shouts from inside, and he joins her in the hallway

they’re celebrating new year’s eve at home with family; I hear the rattle of cutlery and the hum of conversation coming from the dining room; the warm aroma of cooked food reminds me I haven’t eaten tonight; I imagine the steak with baked potatoes and stuffed vine leaves and Russian salad, but quickly swallow my dream and remain alert

mum asks for shelter overnight; we’ll leave in the morning, she says, we’ll go somewhere else; she’s apologetic and begging; the thing is, this neighbour is my mum’s friend, but her husband is my dad’s colleague; in fact, dad is his boss; he doesn’t want to be seen to help us because this would be bad for his career; it will be over and they don’t want that; they’re making their excuses while our hope melts away like the caramel candy they offer me; then we hear a door closing upstairs and give up on the neighbours; we run down the stairs, holding hands, holding our breath

we live on the fourteenth floor and I can’t count that far yet, so my heart skips a beat when we finally reach the block exit; it’s freezing cold outside, we have nowhere to go, but I feel relieved; we walk into the night under occasional fireworks, mingling with people’s laughter, drunken singing and excitement; it’s a new year, a new beginning

or that’s what I thought back then

Until next time,

Nataliya x